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1990 ARCS season
The 1990 American Racing Championship Series season is known as possibly the most gruesome year in racing history. 5 drivers, 11 spectators, 2 track marshals, and 4 pit crew members died from accidents. Of those, 1 of the drivers, track marshals, and a fan lost their lives in a qualifying or practice session. Riley Anderson was declared champion after cancelling the final race at Texas World. Riley Anderson was declared the champion, his second in a row and 3rd ARCS title. He retired later that day. Steel City 200 In the season opener at the newly constructed Pittsburgh Superspeedway, Travis Verner among others brought out a red flag on lap 17. An 8 car incident in turns 1 and 2 resulted in Verner's #86 in the catchfence. A few other cars involved were directly under Verner's car and forced it to hit the fence multiple times. The car eventually became impaled in the fence, front end first. Track marshals rushed to the scene, but the first to see into the cockpit was quoted saying "I fought in Vietnam, but what I saw there is a body mangled beyond comprehension". John Deere Illinois 200 At Grand Detour, a similar incident occurred. Bobby Bonnett, first son of Scott Bonnett, was running 7th on lap 127 when a lapped car spun in front of him. It is common for cars to climb up and go over the guardrail. Bonnett's car hit the wall hard enough to rip the front of the car off. Anything in front of the wheel base was gone. The ensuing end-over-end roll eventually tore off more of the front of the car, exposing Bonnett's body enough to the point where he lost a leg on the last flip. Tar Heel 250 Charlotte was the penultimate race of the 1990 season. It had been a full 6 months without a fatally related to the ARCS. The race was running smoothly until lap 123 of 165. The leaders were knee-deep in lapped traffic. Running in 3rd place, Jimmy Daniels was coming up on a pair of lappers racing side-by-side. Coming into turn 4, they collided. Krayg Randall, the driver on the high line, began to spin down the track, and over-corrected. Daniels went high to avoid the crash, and had no time to react to the 93 now upward drift. The cars collided, and Randall's 93 went airborne. His car went roof-first into the catchfence. Both cars came to rest in the infield, just after the grass section starts next to the pit lane. Both clean up and pit crews went to the crashsite. "The 12 was on fire, and the 93's roof had been torn off partially and had collapsed in the front. Naturally, he was the main priority. The 6th clean up crew, and pit crew of Frank Fielder's 17 were the first on the scene, fire extinguishers going off before even arriving. The front-tire changer of the 17 crew told everyone to stop spraying and to assess the situation. 4 men looked into the 93's cockpit to see a mangled, headless heap 'loosely resembling a human's lower torso and legs'. Horrified, all but one of the men left the scene. The straggler called them back 'what about that other car?'. Only 1 other man returned to the scene. The fire had been blazing for at least 90 seconds now. A few minutes later, a fire team from the backstretch had arrived, and quickly put out the blaze." (quote from the truck driver who transported clean-up team #6) Daniels was flown to the nearest hospital, but was pronounced dead en route. He had multiple skull fractures; his roof had also been collapsed by the bottom-half of the 93, multiple snapped ribs and 3rd-degree burns. The race was restarted, but called 3 laps after the restart, lap 128, and Riley Anderson was leading. Later that day, The Texas World race was cancelled, and Anderson was declared champion. Anderson retired from racing 2 days later "This is the last trophy I'd imagine myself getting, with the events of the last few days. And so, it will be the last trophy I will ever win". 10 spectators also died from the debris flying into the grandstands. Other ARCS fatal incidents in 1990 In a qualifying run at Indianapolis, the first stock car race at the Brickyard, Isaiah Moore lost the back end of his Chevy and went driver's door first into the wall. The incident seemed harmless, but the force of hitting the wall that hard caused enough trauma to fatally injure Moore. During the first practice session of the Nashville race, Andy Wilson and Hank Carson were entering the pits. Carson's car apparently had lost the brakes and colllided hard with Wilson's pit crew which were waiting for him on the pit stall side of the wall. 2 track marshals were also talking to some of them, and were also hit at iver 150 mph.